


A Happy Birthday to the Girl Outside the Garden

by Satan_Yazawa



Series: Love Live Birthdays [6]
Category: Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Angst with a Happy Ending, Birthday, F/F, Ghosts, maris birthdays are shit rip mari, there isnt even that much chikamari in this sorry guys, wheres the heckin chikamari yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-03 20:17:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10974606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satan_Yazawa/pseuds/Satan_Yazawa
Summary: Three times. It took three times before Chika caught the girl who had been there for so long, watching her play with her friends.





	A Happy Birthday to the Girl Outside the Garden

**Author's Note:**

> this was meant to be longer but i accidentally procrastinated too much so it's slightly rushed sorry orz
> 
> also saying "mom" is weird but i went through with it because i couldn't imagine You saying "mum"

"Kanan! Your turn seeking!" I heard You call from across her garden. Sweating from the summer heat, I ran to the bushes by the corner of the garden, next to the crumbling wall. Getting into position behind the largest of the four, I looked quickly to my side. Sitting on the broken wall was a blonde haired girl who looked like she was just a little older than me, maybe older than Kanan. I smiled up at her, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Hey, you can play with us if you want," I whispered to her, turning my head to check for Kanan. As I couldn't see her, I turned back to the girl who I was awaiting an answer from. Gone. Since I didn't get an answer, I didn't think she had decided to begin hiding. I stood up, getting on my tiptoes to see over the non-broken wall. Still, not a trace. She just disappeared. I just stood there rather dumbfounded, a little disconnected from earth.

"Chika? I found you," Kanan said, looking a little concerned. Maybe she had been calling out to me for a few minutes, I wasn't sure. I turned to her, wordlessly, still staring off a little stupidly. "You're it next," she commented before turning to find You.

I shook myself a little before coming back to reality. "Wait up!" I shouted, following after Kanan.

 

* * *

 

"How long is it now until you turn 11, Chika?" Kanan asked, picking another strawberry out of the fruit bowl You's mother made us. It had mikan slices, strawberries, grapes and a few other berries I didn't know the name of in it. We were sitting on the stairs outside You's door, talking and laughing and having a little rest.

"It's less than two months away, but I thought you'd know that." Both Kanan and You had already had their birthdays that year, and I was the youngest out of the three. Thinking of that always reminded me of the fact that I was the youngest of three sisters, too.

"Do you guys want to play something?" You stood up, holding one last slice of mikan. "It's been a while since we did anything at my house. Normally we're at the beach or at Kanan's."

"Sure! What do wanna play? Tag?" I suggested.

"Sounds good to me. You, what do you think?"

"Okay! I'll be it first!" You gave us five seconds to run, before she came after us. She ended up catching Kanan first, giving me a little more time to run around, although I didn't really go far. Kanan had tried to go for You first, but then gave up and came after me. I ran as fast as I possibly could, but she caught my shoulder just as I made a turn. I wasn't sure who to go for first, but decided that I'd go after my ash-haired friend instead of seeking revenge on Kanan. It took me a few seconds to locate where she was (in my defence, You's garden was ridiculously big) but I quickly went after her. We chased around an entire side of the garden, and Kanan came to taunt me too. I stretched my arm out, further, further, a little further... I felt my feet going in the opposite direction from my arm, I missed You entirely as I fell face first onto the grass.

"Are you okay?" They said together, turning around to face me.

"I'm fine," I called out, muffled by the grass.

"I'll go get my mom!" You was already halfway to her door when she shouted that.

"Do you want me to stay here?" Kanan crouched down next to me.

"I think I'll be fine." I turned my head to the side. "You could go get me some mikans though."

Kanan just sighed as she left to fetch the fruit bowl. I pushed myself of the ground, sitting on my knees, turning my head to the other side in an attempt to see Kanan. But nope, instead I something so oddly familiar. I couldn't quite recall where I had seen her before, but there was a girl sitting on You's wall looking down at me. However, the moment our eyes met, she turned away, pretending I wasn't there. I stayed there, staring up at the pale girl, not wanting to take my eyes off of her. She had a pretty white dress on, one that was surprisingly clean considering that she was sitting on a brick wall that wasn't exactly meeting any health standards.

I heard Kanan coming back, and I still didn't take my eyes off of the girl. "Chika? I've got the mikans."

"Kanan!" I shuffled around to meet her eyes. "Do you see her too?"

"What?"

"The girl! She's..." I turned my head back, only to see a wall. Not a girl in sight. I rubbed my eyes, I blinked a few times, I shook my head. Still nothing. "Well, there was a girl. But I guess she's gone."

"Didn't you ask her to play with us?" Kanan seemed a little concerned about me, probably wondering if I had gotten a concussion from falling. She passed me the fruit bowl, waiting patiently for an answer.

"I was going to, but she didn't seem very interested in playing. She looked at me, then looked away when I looked at her."

"You just fell for the mikans, didn't you?" Laughing, Kanan seemed to just move right past the subject. I was confused, but I didn't bother going back to it. After all, when You and her mom came over there was no reason to bring it up again. Explaining it to You just seemed a little pointless, we were too busy talking about other things, and Kanan probably just thought I was going crazy. I didn't really care though, I knew what I saw. I knew that if I saw her again I'd invite her to play.

 

* * *

 

"Do you think You's going to be in?" Kanan asked me as we walked down the street together, chatting about how school had been so far. She hadn't gone in a while, but she was interested in hearing what I had to say about it.

"Yeah, we should definitely stop by there. I don't think she's going to be swimming right now."

"I wouldn't blame her if she was, it's pretty hot out today." She looked like she was going to say something else, but we stopped walking when we saw a man on the street, kicking a bin and screaming, clearly quite aggravated by something. He looked familiar, but I can't remember ever seeing _anyone_ quite that angry before then.

"Kanan, who's that?" I whispered, not taking my eyes off the senile, middle-aged-ish man who was making himself look like quite the fool. He looked less than sober and had blond hair, a rather odd sight. I wasn't sure, but it sounded like he was saying something foreign, either that or he was just slurring his words more than was normal for a drunken man.

"An Ohara." She sounded pretty hostile, which was certainly weird for Kanan. She was one of the calmest people I knew.

"Hmm?" I inspected her a little more closely, and while she looked like she was trying to remain calm, her expression was laced with anger.

"They're a rich family, but they're crazy. It's because they lost their daughter, and yet they're still grieving in the strangest possible way," she explained. I could practically feel the hatred radiating off of her.

"Their daughter..."

"Mari. About a decade ago, she died the night before her birthday. She would be in my class if she was still around." She started walking again, and I didn't object. I knew that, despite being a calm person generally, she could get pretty rough when she was annoyed. It was a rare sight, but I knew her well enough to know about even her most uncommon sides.

We walked in silence the rest of the way to You's house, and she still looked pretty pissed, but it was as if she was starting to feel like she should loosen up. That feeling of wanting to keep a certain emotion, but not knowing what for.  I wanted to speak up, but by the time I had gathered my confidence, You's house was right in front of us. I rang the doorbell, waiting for a response. Normally You would get the door, her mom would only ever get it if she was out or taking way longer than necessary to get ready. A minute or so passed before we heard faint footsteps, meaning You had to be in.

"Hey!" You swung the door open with one hand, nearly hitting Kanan square in the face, the other slipping her second shoe on. "What's up?"

"We wondered if you wanted to come out with us, and I'm going to guess you do." I laughed at her rather messy hair and her blue t-shirt which was, so far, only halfway down her torso.

"Yep!" She took another second to fix herself, before asking, "where are we off to?"

"Kanan? Any suggestions?" Anything to lighten her up a bit.

"Maybe we could just stay out here. Your house, I mean. It's been a while since we last just sat outside and talked about things." She was smiling again, a pretty, shining smile. I was always a bit jealous of how well she could take care of her teeth honestly, they were like glimmering pearls.

We nodded in response, silently deciding that we were going through You's house to get to the back entrance where the sun shone down, dappling the green scenery so beautifully. Her mom shouted at us for running so quickly, but we ended up just laughing when she was out of earshot.

Kanan dropped down onto the stone slab stairs first, though it from way too high a distance and resulted in her letting out a short but terrifyingly loud screech of pain and possibly because the stone was burning through her . I sat beside her, taking more care so that I didn't end up splitting the ears of the whole town too. You followed suit, and we spoke about this and that and how life was going and what we were going to be doing in the summer holidays. We spoke for what felt like such a short time, but it ended up being around two hours. You offered to get us food and drinks, as it was about time for lunch, and suggested that we should start stretching, because we were going on a run. That was the problem with having two sporty best friends. I always had to go running or swimming or something with them, which would be fine if I was athletic at all.

"Chika, let's go!" Kanan hopped off of the steps to stretch, already so ready to go despite having sat almost completely still for the past two hours. I, on the other hand, was aching like a eighty-year-old.

"But I'm so tired!" I groaned, hoping desperately that Kanan would take pity on me. She probably wasn't going to, but there was a first time for everything. It was too hot to exercise, unless we were going swimming, which we weren't.

"Too bad!" Kanan crouched down, ready to run. "Catch me and maybe you can rest!" She was off before I could fully process her sentence. When I did though, I sprinted down at her side to try and cut her off, but she turned away.

"No fair, you got a head start!" Kanan just chuckled loudly in response. I was going to need better tactics, because I certainly couldn't outrun her. Maybe trapping her would work. Or better yet, setting up a trap. I sat down on the grass beneath me, trying not to smile. I heard a small rustle behind me, and while my first thought was that You was sneaking up behind me, I knew she couldn't be. I looked over my shoulder, to see a girl, about Kanan's age with blonde hair, standing, looking over the wall. She looked pretty down, but that's not why I approached her. This wasn't the first time, but it was going to be the last. The first times were blurry, I didn't know if it was the same girl or not, but I was going to talk to this one no matter what.

I placed my hand on the wall beside her. "Hi. What do you want?" She looked up, surprised, and stood straight. She was surprisingly tall when upright, it was difficult to judge when someone was hunched over. She brushed down her dress with her hands, and looked like she was choking on her words.

"I- I'm... I don't know," she stuttered. Shock or fear or something like that was what I saw in her eyes, yellow and dull.

"So you  _can_ talk," I said absentmindedly. "I don't suppose you've been here before?"

"Well... yes, but-"

"I don't care why you came then, I want to know why you keep coming back and disappearing before anyone else can see you. Am I the only one who can see you? What's your name? How old are you?" Bombarding her with questions was pretty stupid, but it was something I did way too often, too often to stop it. Plus, it was all stuff I needed to know, so there was reason behind it.

"I... I'm dead. I'm a ghost. That's why I keep coming here. And no, you're not the only one- it's not even you I'm trying to see- it's... Kanan. I'm trying to speak to her. She can see me too. You've asked her before, but she said no. She hates me. We were friends, once, but... I died and... I guess she blames herself. My name's Mari, I'd be 17 if I was still alive," she spilled it all out, and I knew at that moment that she was trapped, too. She was trapped, waiting for someone to save her. She'd never said a word of this to anyone before, it had been on her mind, weighing her down for the past decade or so.

"Mari Ohara?" Was all I could say- I was too shocked for anything else to come out.

"Yep! I know that my parents are overreacting, by the way, there's no need to mention it." She sounded oddly cheerful about that part. It was pretty unnerving, considering that she was talking about her pretty deranged parents.

"Do you want me to get Kanan for you? I'm sure she'll talk it out with you, she's a calm person!"

"No. I need to talk to her some other time. Maybe she's calm around you, and maybe you won't remember this, but, so many years ago, you saw me. Kanan saw me too, she looked right into my eyes. Anger. That's all I saw. She hated seeing me, so in a second, I was gone. But I was still lingering there, behind the wall. I heard her dismiss me as you tried to talk about me to her. I just wish she would be friends with me again, really." Her heart was going into this, I knew it was. She was in pain, and somehow Kanan hated her.

"Well, do you want to come running with us?" I didn't want to leave her, for another week or year or decade to go by, all alone. I had to offer something, I had to help her somehow.

"But, Kanan-"

"Ignore her if you have to. I want to be friends."

Her pale face lit up, shining brightly as I said that. She was misty-eyed, I wondered if ghosts could cry. She could age, so maybe it was possible. I gestured her to follow me, though I stopped when I realised she had to climb a wall. One leg at a time, she hopped over. I was going to help her over, hold her hand maybe, but I was afraid I'd look stupid if my hand went through hers.

"Chika?" Kanan noticed me coming away from the corner of the garden. She was standing next to You, and they each had a sandwich in their hand. She probably saw Mari too, but once again chose to ignore her.

"Hey!" I shouted, darting towards them, Mari following at a walking pace. "What kinda sandwiches are they?"

"Ham... who's that?" You seemed surprised that I had just found a girl, her jaw agape, starting when Mari had came into her view.

"You!" Kanan seemed annoyed enough, alright, shooting daggers at You for such an innocent question.

I looked up at Mari, but she didn't have anything to say. She was afraid, probably, and I didn't want to make her say anything. I took the task of explaining it instead. "This is Mari! She was on the other side of your wall, she's going running with us."

"Is it a good idea to run in a dress that long? You might trip," You pointed out. Her dress nearly reached the ground, it touched her ankles. Her ankles were bare, too- she wasn't wearing any shoes.

"Do you have any clothes she could wear then?" I had to do this for her.

"Ah, maybe. Mari, come with me!" You led her to her room, leaving Kanan alone with me again. She hadn't changed her expression- maybe she had, actually, but it was worse than it had been- she was still clearly annoyed.

I didn't think she would say anything to me, but she had a question. "Did she tell you?" It could've meant anything, but I knew she was talking about their old friendship.

"Yeah. Why are you still upset?"

"Did she tell you the full story, though? Did she mention Dia?"

"No. But-"

"The full story goes like this. When I was 7, I had two other friends who I was close with. They were both in the same year as me. Mari and Dia. When I wasn't with you or the diving shop, I was probably with them. Mari was the adventurous one. Dia was the smart one. I guess that I was the sensible one, although Dia could be called that too. One day, Mari asked us, "Do you want to come exploring with me tomorrow?" and I said no, since I had to help out at the shop that day. Dia also said no, because she had to go out with her family. Mari decided to go on her own. I was at the shop all day that day, so I don't really know what happened, but I've gathered that Dia was with her for part of the day.  
"Dia explored a little bit, in the woods near here. She was scared, and really reluctant to follow Mari, but she did it anyway. She was scared for a reason though- the deeper you get, the darker it gets. The darker it gets, the harder it is to see what you're doing. Dia left eventually, but told her not to explore without us. Mari said she'd do that, but she was lying. She tried climbing a tree in the dark." Kanan was tearing up, her eyes getting puffier and puffier.

"She fell off?"

"Yeah," she forced out, clearly choked up.

"It wasn't your fault that you couldn't be there! You did nothing wrong!"

"I should've been the one to tell her! She listened to me! She would listen to Dia for her smarts and me for my senses!" Kanan probably wasn't interested in talking it out- Mari was right. But it felt wrong to have them both so upset. I couldn't do anything but run in between them, could I?

Mari emerged wearing a white t-shirt with an anchor on it, a pair of shorts and some red and white trainers. "It's pretty today. So shiny!" She commented, facing the glaring sun. _Ghosts have it pretty easy_ , I thought. She probably couldn't feel any heat, or be affected by it in any way. "Well, let's run!"

She charged off ahead of us, Kanan and You were even struggling to catch up with her. She definitely was the adventurous one. I was behind everyone, but I pushed on, trying to catch up to them on the near-empty streets. I couldn't even see Mari since she was so far ahead, but I was going to get to her. Kanan and You eventually left my sight too, but I ran on. I knew where they'd be going, as Uchiura was never the biggest or most complex place, so it was just a matter of going full speed ahead and trusting where my feet were taking me- maybe not the best idea actually, I'm pretty bad with directions.

A few unmoving dots in the distance told me they had stopped. It was just a straight line, no backing down now. I pushed off of the pavement harder than I thought I could have, not stopping despite my aching legs and being short of breath. I needed to make sure everything was fine.

I heard Mari and You calling me, and at some point Kanan joined in too. When they came into view I saw Kanan leaning one Mari (meaning that she was solid) and You waving me over. They'd probably explained it all to her. As they became clearer I could see Kanan crying, Mari tearing up and You... well, being You.

"Thanks, Chika," Kanan whispered as I jumped into You's arms.

"Thank you so much!" Mari hugged me, or attempted to (she wasn't actually solid apparently, Kanan was just awkwardly floating) and I turned to face her. "I'm glad you helped me out, Chika. It means the world to me."

"No problem. Feel free to come ask me for help any time!" I offered. "And, Mari?"

"Yeah?"

"This is just a guess but... happy birthday."


End file.
